Portraits and Equivalents

A Tribute to Herbert Quick

California Museum of Photography

January 27 - April 14, 2007

Opening Reception

Saturday, January 27, 2007, 7pm - 9pm

When Herbert Quick passed away this October he left UCR/CMP not only his life\'s archive of prints, but a remarkable set of thirty-seven 3-ring binders which preserves in carefully numbered chronological order, contact prints of the photographs he considered of greatest significance. Perhaps the most intriguing aspect of these binders is that they contain 8x10 contact sheets that were dry mounted back-to-back before being inserted into clear poly sheets. Following chronological rather than thematic content these dry mounted pairs create a new inseparable artifact in which the relationship between front and back suggests a formal and psychological coherence that goes beyond mere coincidence. This exhibition uses these cemented pairs to uncover alternative readings of Herb\'s photographs. They help us to understand Herb Quick\'s landscapes and interiors as portraits, and his portraits-to borrow Aaron Siskind\'s famous observation-as exterior dramas of interior events.